"Am I going to be this wonderful, smiling guy every day? Fat chance. It's not going to happen," Tortorella said. "But I still need to get an in-between there of simply dismissing and not wanting to be bothered with you versus having dinner with you every night."

That's reasonable. It'd be ridiculous and unfair to expect Tortorella to morph into some press darling just because he got a new job. Cutting out outright hostility and avoiding stuff that turns into distractions for his players is good enough. And maybe dinner. Sometimes.

The entire interview is worth a read, particularly what Tortorella said about Roberto Luongo, who's returning to the Canucks after a year of failed attempts at trading him: "I think he's prepared for that and the bottom line is he told me "I just want to play." I think that is the most important thing, if there is some conflict or you are unhappy about certain things, the bottom line is and he understands it, is that he is playing for his teammates. Those are the most important people."